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CHAPTER XXVII
“THE GERMANS ARE COMING!”

It was in the early days of the war when the gallant defenders of Liege were still undauntedly holding back the Teuton thousands with their great “caterpillar” siege guns that were destined, ere long, to hammer down the stubborn defense of Belgium’s neutrality. Trains were running and business, although seriously hampered, was still being carried on, though the foe was at the gate and the capital had been removed from Brussels to Antwerp.

Armed with passes signed by M. La Farge, to which their photographs were attached for purposes of identification, the boys started for Liege the next day. It was likely to prove an arduous and not unhazardous task that they had embarked upon. In the first place “spy fever” was at its height. Anyone not in uniform was liable to be held up and questioned, and if satisfactory explanations were not forthcoming, they were liable to very unpleasant consequences.

The word of any frightened peasant choosing to “denounce” anybody had led to riots and affrays in which men and women, suspected of espionage, had been rescued by troopers after being half beaten to death.

Above all, the boys were warned not to carry weapons of any kind, an injunction which they obeyed as they did all the rest of M. La Farge’s admonitions. The train journey proved exasperating. Sometimes it would be halted for hours on a side track while trains, loaded with young-looking soldiers in a strange medley of gay Belgian uniforms, went by, the men cheering and singing. Again, much time was wasted by careful reconnaissances, for there was fear that bridges might have been dynamited or the right of way mined by the spies who were rife throughout the country.

A whole day passed thus, with the train creeping like a snail and continually stopping and starting. The roads at the side of the track were alive with peasants flocking to different centres from their lonely houses in the country. Some had their family possessions piled high in small carts drawn by dogs. Others carried what they had been able hastily to collect. It was another sad picture of war and the desolation it had brought on an inoffensive, industrious little country.

Several aeroplanes soared above the train, reconnoitering the country. At first the boys were nervous lest there might be a repetition of the bomb-dropping at Antwerp, but they were assured by the official on the train, who had examined their passes, that the aircraft were all friendly French and Belgian aeroplanes, after which they watched them with less uncomfortable feelings. As Bill put it:

“If we were at war and shouldering rifles for the dear old U. S. A., we’d take the chances of war with the rest of them, but being a neutral, there’s no sense in throwing away our bright young lives,” a sentiment to which Jack agreed heartily.

It was dark when the train rolled into Louvain. After innumerable challenges by armed sentries, they at last reached the hotel of the place where many of the soldiers were quartered. If Antwerp had seemed like an armed fortress, signs of military activity were much more marked in the old cathedral town.

Lights were not allowed after eight o’clock. Citizens were kept off the streets at night after certain hours. Artillery rumbled through the city all night, going to the front, the boys were told.

Disquieting rumors of the fall of Liege, and the advance of the Germans, had already reached the town, and on the outskirts, barbed wire defenses were erected and trenches dug hastily. Residents were warned, in the event of the Germans entering the city, to behave themselves strictly as non-combatants, the magnificent cathedral was fitted up as a hospital in case of emergencies. The thrill of warfare was in the air.

It was early the next morning that Jack aroused Bill from his sleep.

“Hark, Bill!” he exclaimed, holding up one hand.

From far off came the boom of cannon. The ground seemed to tremble under the thunder-like reverberations. Down in the street a squadron of cavalry raced through the town. Then came the rumbling of guns being rushed to the front.

“It’s a big battle,” declared Jack; “and what’s more the sounds have been growing louder. It must be a retreat.”

Bill looked grave.

“In that case we are likely to be in the thick of it.”

“I’m afraid so, and it may be mighty difficult to get away. We’ll have to find Tom Jukes as soon as we can, and then get back to the coast.”

An aeroplane buzzed by overhead, its powerful engines whirring, buzzing thunderously. By daylight the town was almost empty of soldiers; they had all, except a few detachments, been called to the front during the night.

The landlord of the hotel was in a great state of perturbation.

“Ah, those terrible Germans!” he exclaimed, “they will wreck our beautiful town and put us to death. I know them. Oh, what unhappy times.”

“Perhaps they may be beaten back,” encouraged Jack.

“Oh, no! No such good fortune,” said the landlord, wringing his hands miserably. Just after dawn, a mud-spattered courier arrived, and declared Liege had fallen, “the Germans are coming.”

Everywhere that was the cry as, after a hasty breakfast in the disordered hotel, the boys hurried out.

CHAPTER XXVIII
FAST TRAVELING

The sound of firing was now much closer. Frightened faces were peering from behind shuttered windows. All traffic appeared to have stopped, and the only life beyond the few persons abroad, whose curiosity was stronger than their fear of the big German guns, was when an occasional body of troops would rush through the streets.

The beautiful Hotel de Ville and the fine old cathedral, so soon destined to be damaged by fire and bullets, attracted the attention of the boys and gained a hearty expression of admiration from them both. All at once there was a whirr and the snort of a horn, and an armored war-automobile, carrying a machine gun, and painted a business-like gray, dashed around a corner and sped on. Another car came close behind it.

The second machine carried an American and a Red Cross flag. It was coming fast and contained two occupants. Both were youths, and one carried a camera over his shoulder by a broad strap. But the other attracted Jack’s notice, for in him he recognized instantly the lad they were in search of, Tom Jukes, the millionaire’s son.

“Hey, Tom Jukes!” he hailed.

The car slowed up and the young driver turned questioningly in his seat.

“Well, by all that’s wonderful, it’s Jack Ready and Bill Raynor!” he exclaimed, as the two lads came up to the car. “What in the world are you doing here?”

“We’ve been sent to ask you that same question,” responded Jack, who, it will be recalled, became well acquainted with Tom Jukes when the young wireless man was in the hospital in New York following his battle with the desperate tobacco smugglers he was instrumental in sending to prison.

“What do you mean?” asked Tom with wide-open eyes.

“Why, your father hadn’t heard from you and – ”

“Hadn’t heard from me! Why, I’ve written several letters,” declared Tom. “I’d have cabled, but they’ve stopped all that for the present, at least. I declare, that’s too bad. And so the governor sent you on a searching expedition, eh?”

“Well, it was to be a combination of that and a vacation,” laughed Jack, and he told something of their adventures on board the “Gold Ship.”

“My word, you fellows are always having adventures,” said Tom, with a smile on his good-looking face. “The fact is, I guess reading of your exploits made me stay over here when this row started to see if I couldn’t have some of my own. I’m staying with Belgian friends, about half a mile from here, and so far I haven’t done much but get ready to help in Red Cross work and so on. But now I guess it’s up to me to get back to the U. S. A.”

“If we can,” said Jack. “I don’t know where the ship we came over on, the St. Mark, has been sent to. London and Paris are overrun with American refugees. When we were there, hundreds of them were unable to get passage, or even change their money.”

“Oh, the whole world seems to have been shuffled in this thing,” frowned Tom, “but let me introduce my friend, Philander Pottle. He’s a photographer for a New York newspaper.”

The boys shook hands with Pottle, a dark young fellow who talked as explosively as a machine gun.

“Glad to meet you – fine fight – be here soon – great pictures – snap! bang! – action – that’s the stuff!”

“We’re going out toward the front, that is, if we can get by,” declared Tom; “want to come along?”

The boys looked rather dubious.

“I don’t know what your father – ” began Jack doubtfully.

Tom interrupted him impulsively.

“Oh, there’s no danger so long as we don’t get in any of the scrimmages ourselves,” he declared, “and then the American flag and the Red Cross emblem will keep us out of trouble.”

Both boys were anxious to go, so that it did not take much more persuasion to make them get in.

“Now then off we go – bang! biff! – big guns!”

Outside the city lay an open country. Far off they could see a great cloud-like mass of smoke which, no doubt, marked the place where the fight was taking place.

“We’ll make a detour to the north,” declared Tom. “There’s rising ground there and we can look down without danger of getting hit.”

“Not want to get hit – cannon ball – gee whizz, off goes your head – much better keep it on,” said Pottle, in his firecracker way.

“He talks as fast as a photographic shutter moves,” chuckled Bill to Jack in a low voice and the other could not but agree. As they rode on, they passed groups of soldiers and artillery. Now and then a lumbering wagon, bringing back wounded men lying on piles of straw, jolted by, bearing mute testimony of the havoc going on at the front.

The boys began to feel sick and queer and even Tom sobered down at these sights. They were stopped several times by small skirmishing bands and made to show their papers, for a few days before German spies had been captured in a car flying an American flag. The car sped up a hill and then started swiftly down on the other side of the acclivity.

At the foot of the hill, a long and steep one, was a wooden bridge. Tom was driving fast, when suddenly there was a sharp, snapping sound and the car leaped forward. Tom’s foot was on the brake in a jiffy, but there was no diminution in the speed of the machine. Instead, it appeared to gain momentum every moment.

“Bother it all,” muttered Tom; “brakes bust. I can’t slow down till we get to the bottom of the hill.”

“I hope we don’t meet anything,” cried Jack.

“If we do grand bust – smash – crash – no chance – wow!” exploded the photographer.

But there was nothing in sight, and beyond the bridge was another up grade where Tom hoped to gain control of the runaway machine. But within a few hundred feet of the bridge some soldiers suddenly appeared, running from the bridge as if they were in haste to leave the vicinity.

As the car came in sight they waved it frantically back. One even leveled a rifle.

“Can’t stop,” shouted Tom Jukes, “brakes bust.”

They flashed by the men who looked mere blurs at the pace the car was now going.

Bang! came a shot behind them, but the bullet whistled by, making them involuntarily crouch low in the madly racing car. Behind them came shouts and yells. They could catch something about Germans.

“They think we’re German spies,” gasped Bill, as the car thundered across the bridge.

Hardly had it flashed across than there came a terrific explosion and looking back they saw the whole bridge blown skyward. Their lives had been saved by a miracle.

“Those soldiers must have mined that bridge and set the fuse just before we appeared,” declared Jack, looking rather white and dismayed.

“We weren’t a second too soon. If we’d been going slower we’d have been wiped off the map,” added Bill soberly.

“I’m going to keep running at this speed till we’re out of this neighborhood,” cried Tom Jukes. “It’s not healthy.”

CHAPTER XXIX
THE UHLANS!

But clearly fate was against their seeing anything of the battle that morning. They were still going fast, traveling through a wooded country that alternated with open stretches, where they could catch a glimpse of the far-off fight, when there came a sudden ominous sound:

Bang!

“There’s a shot,” cried Bill, looking round with alarm on his face.

“That was no shot,” returned Tom with a rueful grin, “it was one of the tires blowing out.”

“Pop – bang – air all out – pump her up – hard work – too bad,” exploded Pottle.

“Fritz, I’ll be jiggered if you don’t talk like a tire going on the fritz yourself,” laughed Tom, as he succeeded in slowing the car down on a gentle grade by reversing the engine and then stopping at the bottom.

“Fritz – German name – don’t use it in Belgium – think you’re a spy – then you’ll be on the fritz,” sputtered Pottle.

The car was brought to a standstill opposite a neat white farmhouse approached by an avenue of slender dark poplars. A big dog bayed as the car stopped, but there was no other sign of life about the place except some chickens pecking and scratching in the dooryard. In the background were yellow stacks, for the harvest had just been gathered. It made a pretty, contented scene in contrast with the turbulent experiences through which the boys had passed only recently.

But they did not spend much time comparing the rural peace with the unrest of the cities in the war area. There was work for them all to do. First the brake was mended by replacing a broken bolt that had caused the trouble that almost ended tragically for them. Then came the fitting of a new “shoe” and tube, at which they all helped by turns.

The work took some time, and at its completion they were all dusty, hot, and very thirsty.

“I’d give a lot for a good drink of cold water or milk right now,” puffed Tom, resting from his exertions with the tire pump. “What do you say if we go up to that farmhouse and see if we can buy something to drink?”

“Oh, for an ice cream soda,” sighed Bill.

“You might as well wish for lemonade in the Sahara desert,” scoffed Tom. “They wouldn’t know an ice cream soda here if they met it.”

Laughing and chatting, they approached the house, walking up the avenue. But as they neared it, their cheerfulness appeared to receive a check. No indication of life but those mentioned appeared about the place. It was silent and shuttered. The stable seemed to be empty. No farm wagons stood about.

Repeated knockings at the door failed to produce anyone.

“There’s a well yonder,” said Tom Jukes. “What do you say if we help ourselves?”

“We’ll have to, I guess,” agreed Jack. “Everyone about the place must have been scared away by the battle.”

“Or more probably the men were called to arms and the women have gone to some place of safety,” was Bill’s opinion.

A great earthenware vessel stood by the well brink and they refreshed themselves from this with long draughts of cold, clear water.

“That’s better,” declared Tom, as he set down the pitcher after a second application from it. “Now let’s be getting on, for we’ve got to find another road back.”

“Wait a minute – great chance – deserted farm – men at war – women flee in haste leaving faithful dog!” exclaimed Pottle, unslinging his camera.

“Well, hurry up and get through with your old picture box,” conceded Tom, “and, by the way, you might let that dog loose. Poor creature, he’ll surely starve to death tied up like that.”

Although the dog was a ferocious-looking animal, he seemed to know that the boys meant to give him his liberty, for he allowed them to take off his chain without any opposition and went to a small stream that flowed behind the house to slake his thirst.

This had hardly been done, and Pottle had taken a few snaps, when down the road came a furious galloping and a squadron of Belgian cavalry appeared, spurring for their lives, while behind came hoarse shouts and shots.

“Great Scott! We’re in for it now!” exclaimed Tom in a dismayed voice; “a flanking party must have attacked those fellows and driven them back.”

The squadron, a small one, and probably a scouting party, galloped past the house without even noticing the boys and the auto standing in the road. It was plain they were hard pressed. They had hardly gone when another body of horsemen appeared. They wore gray uniforms. Their metal helmets were covered with canvas with the number of their troop stencilled on it in large figures. Each man carried a lance with a gleaming point. Like those they pursued they swept by without paying attention to anything but the pursuit.

“Uhlans!” exclaimed Tom. “I hope we haven’t blundered into the thick of this thing.”

They all stopped to listen. The noise of the pursuit had died out, but now more hoof beats could be heard approaching rapidly.

CHAPTER XXX
“YOU ARE A SPY!”

In another moment a smaller body of men swept up to the farmhouse, drawing rein at the sight of the stalled car. By their uniforms and the fluttering ensign held up by a big trooper, the boys guessed them to be officers. They paused for a moment and then, after a few words, turned and came galloping up the poplar-lined approach.

The boys exchanged blank looks.

“Keep cool,” urged Tom, “there isn’t anything they can do to hurt us.”

“I don’t know, I’ve heard some queer tales of the Germans,” declared Jack, rather apprehensively, “for one thing they’ve no great love for Americans.”

“But they wouldn’t dare to injure us,” declared Bill.

The horsemen, of whom there were six, and they saw that two were slightly wounded, came galloping up and drew rein. The leader of the party was a fierce, hawk-nosed old man with an immense drooping mustache. The others were young officers, rather foppish-looking. Two of them wore monocles.

But it was the figure of the man who brought up the rear of the party that excited Jack’s attention to the exclusion of the others.

“Radwig!” he gasped to Bill as he recognized the figure of the former Herr Professor of the German War college, in spite of his wearing a uniform.

“Wow! There’ll be trouble sure now,” muttered Bill. “See, he’s looking at us.”

“Yes, he recognizes us and he doesn’t look over amiable.”

Radwig spurred his horse to the side of the hawk-nosed old colonel and spoke rapidly. The old man bent keen eyes on the party of boys.

“Herr Radwig informs me that two of your party are spies,” he said in a chilling voice; “is that the truth?”

“Of course not,” declared Jack, paling a trifle. “We are all Americans.”

“Unfortunately, a great many persons, including English spies, are protecting themselves under that banner nowadays,” was the rejoinder. “I’ll trouble you to show your papers.”

“Why, Mr. Radwig knows me and my friend here,” burst out Jack.

“I know nothing but what I suspect,” snarled Radwig, his eyes gleaming viciously. “Colonel, will you allow me to search these boys?”

The other nodded assent.

“I would rather be searched by somebody else,” protested Jack, guessing what sort of treatment they would get from the man who hated him.

“Herr Radwig will search you,” was the rejoinder, and then, in German, he gave orders to a non-commissioned officer, – a sergeant, – to get a meal ready within the house. Radwig compelled the indignant boys to turn out everything in their pockets and Pottle’s camera was ordered destroyed forthwith.

Radwig’s search was rapid and thorough. When it was concluded, he turned to the colonel.

“There is nothing incriminating on any of them, but on this one here,” he declared.

He pointed at Jack as he spoke.

“And he – ?”

“Has two passes on the Belgian railroads in his pocket.”

This was true, for Jack had not given up both passes the last time they had to show them.

“That seems to prove that he has some position of trust with the Belgian government,” declared Radwig, “and as such is properly a prisoner of war.”

Jack looked his dismay; but the colonel gave a sharp order. Two soldiers laid hold of the boy. He started to shake them off indignantly while his friends looked on aghast.

“I can explain all this,” he cried; “this man Radwig had trouble with me. He’s trying to get even. He – ”

“Take him away,” came the cold order in unmoved tones. “You are responsible for him,” added the colonel to Jack’s two captors. “See that he is carefully guarded till the court martial.”

“The court martial!” cried Jack. “Why, I – I’m an American citizen and – ”

“There is no more to be said,” and Jack, with an armed guard pressing a revolver to either side, was marched off without a chance to say more. As he went on, he could hear his friends protesting indignantly and then, they too, were taken in charge by the soldiers and escorted to the automobile. Then came a sharp order to them to drive back to Louvain on pain of death. There was nothing for them to do but to obey. The iron discipline of the German officers allowed no argument. And so, leaving Jack to his fate, they were compelled to drive off with heavy hearts.

“Don’t worry, we’ll get the American consul and get him out all right,” said Tom, as cheerfully as he could.

But Bill, with the thought of a court martial in his mind, sat in a miserable state all the way back to the town which they reached only after making a long detour, necessitated by the blown-up bridge.

His chum in the hands of the Germans, and subject to court martial, Bill had good cause to feel worried and oppressed as to the outcome when he realized the influence that Radwig, Jack’s enemy, appeared to possess. To what terrible lengths might not his desire for vengeance lead him?